US researchers have found evidence, which suggests people with a higher IQ level are better at blocking and ignoring distractions.
A new study conducted by the U.S. researchers states that people with higher IQ levels are better at blocking and ignoring distractions. Though they may be slow to notice larger background movements, they are quick at detecting small moving objects as their minds are trained to filter out non-essential information and concentrate on essential ones, says a report in BBC News.
Michael Melnick of the University of Rochester says that this study could help scientists determine what makes some people more intelligent and efficient than others. The study was conducted on 53 people who were asked to undergo a simple visual test. Participants were given short video clips to watch, which had moving black and white bars. Some of these video clips were small and filled only the center of the TV screen while others were larger and filled the whole screen. Participants were to determine in which direction the bars were moving - left or right. After that, all participants took part in a standardized intelligence test.
The researchers found that participants with a higher IQ level were faster at detecting movements in the smaller clippings but took longer with larger clippings.
"From previous research, we expected that all participants would be worse at detecting the movement of large images, but high IQ individuals were much, much worse," Melnick said.
Researchers stated that detecting smaller moving objects in the foreground is more important than detecting larger movements in the background. Hence, as a person's IQ level increases, he becomes better at blocking out background distractions and concentrates more on foreground activities.
However, researchers have made it clear that the ability to ignore background movements doesn't indicate a person's intelligence level.
"Because intelligence is such a broad construct, you can't really track it back to one part of the brain," says Duje Tadin, who also worked on the study, according to a report in BBC. But since this task is so simple and so closely linked to IQ, it may give us clues about what makes a brain more efficient, and consequently, more intelligent. We know from prior research, which parts of the brain are involved in visual suppression of background motion. This new link to intelligence provides a good target for looking at what is different about the neural processing, what's different about the neurochemistry, what's different about the neurotransmitters of people with different IQs."
The study is published online in the journal Current Biology.
